The electronic shelf label (ESL) market is estimated to grow from USD 186.5 Million in 2014 to USD 399.6 Million by 2020, at a CAGR of 14.1% between 2015 and 2020. Electronic shelf labels are used in retail stores, namely, hypermarkets, supermarkets, non-food retail stores, and others to replace traditional paper pricing labels with electronic wireless technology-aided labels. The ESL links the product price to the centralized store server and enables retailers to remotely change the price of the products. The installation of ESLs allows retailers in real-time product positioning and creating interactive instore environment. This report aims at estimating the current market size and future growth potential of the ESL market. The base year considered for this study is 2014, and the market forecast from 2015 to 2020 is given. The key drivers for this market are real-time product positioning, return on investment, cost savings, and accuracy. In mature regions such as Europe and North America, the stringent government policies regarding the product pricing plays a vital role in driving the demand for ESLs. The retailers may be fined in case of any pricing error; therefore, the traditional paper labels would be replaced by these electronic labels.

The research methodology used to estimate and forecast the ESL market begins with capturing the data on key ESL manufacturers through secondary research. The vendors offering and their current contracts with retailers are also considered for this estimation. The final estimation was made by identifying the region-wise sales of the major companies and analyzing the total number of ESL installations done globally using bottom-up approach and multiplying them with the average selling price of ESLs. Finally, the annual revenue of the top players is also used to verify the estimated market. After arriving at the overall market size, the total market was split into several segments and subsegments which are then verified through primary research by conducting interviews with key experts such as CEOs, VPs, Directors, Product Managers, and others. This data triangulation and market breakdown procedures were employed to complete the overall market engineering process and arrive at the exact statistics for all segments and subsegments. The breakdown of profiles of primary is depicted in the below figure:

The electronic shelf label (ESL) market size is expected to grow from USD 186.5 Million in 2014 to USD 399.6 Million by 2020, at a CAGR of 14.1% between 2015 and 2020. The growing need for price automation, centralized management, and real-time product positioning are creating huge demand for electronic shelf labels across the world. The growing complexities in managing and increasing sales in the retail stores are creating opportunities for the ESL market. The expansion of large retailers such as Wal-Market Stores (U.S.), Tesco Plc (U.K.), and others is also responsible in contributing to the overall ESL market. It was found that price fluctuations influence the customer decision making and purchase; therefore, these labels are in high demand in food and non-food retail stores. The non-food retail stores, which include electronics stores and pharmacies, are expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period because in these end-user industries, ESL system allows retailers to change and update the pricing information within few minutes from any centralized location. The updation speed increases retail operation efficiency and accuracy and helps gaining competitive advantage. Therefore, the market finds huge opportunity to proliferate in the next five years.

The scope of this report covers the market segmented on the basis of product type, communication technology, store type, component, and region. Hypermarkets are expected to have the largest market share and dominate the market from 2015 to 2020. The full-graphic ESL market is expected to grow at the highest growth rate between 2015 and 2020. By using full-graphic ESLs, retailers can project different logos, pictures, clipart, and other promotional graphics to gain customer attention. Moreover, these e-paper labels enable to use different colors to project the information.

The LCD labels have also contributed to the overall market. These labels are comparatively cheaper than full-graphic labels. The only drawback of these labels is it does not support graphic content. Therefore, for small-scale retailers, the LCD ESLs are mostly preferred because of their low cost. It is also expected that in emerging markets such as APAC and RoW the use of LCD ESLs would be more than E-paper-based ESLs due to cost advantages also the retailers in these regions rely on manual procedures for price change in their stores; hence, LCD ESLs suits best to their business needs and scale of operations.

The radio frequency communication technology dominated the market, but other emerging technologies, such as NFC and BLE, are also gaining the market because of their advantage to engage with other consumer electronics. Radio frequency is a stable technology for wireless communication in the ESL market and is mostly used to update the labels display.

Europe is expected to hold the largest market share and dominate the ESL market because of the presence of large number of ESL manufacturers and end users in this region. The segmented ESLs are expected to show the least growth rate in Europe during the forecast period. While APAC offers potential growth opportunities as there is rise in technology adoption and expansion of major retailers in this region.

However, the availability of cheap labor and lack of IT flexibly is hampering the growth of the ESL market. In present conditions, ESLs are used only by Tier I and II retailers or those have a high scale of operations. However, in emerging markets such as APAC and RoW, it is hard for retailers to justify the investment made in this technology. In APAC, only countries such as Japan, China, South Korea, and Australia are contributing to the ESL market, and other countries lag in use of these electronics labels. The reason for non-acceptance of these labels is due to the low penetration of organized retail stores and availability of cheap labor. These regions are not very aggressive in technology adoption and also the existing infrastructure facilities add extra burden on retailers. But the key players have started developing cost-effective labels for these markets by collaborating with private regional partners. These partnerships are expected to help the market to grow into these high growth regions.

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